


Birth of Comets

by Lunarium



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 22:02:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9627335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarium/pseuds/Lunarium
Summary: “So what if my feathers are burning? I never asked for flight” is from  Ocean Vuong's “Devotion” inNight Sky with Exit Wounds.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Wavesinger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Wavesinger/gifts).



Shadow came from light, and thus Thuringwethil was born from the first cast of light by Ilmarë, chieftain of the Maiar and handmaiden to Varda. From a ball of light, pouring from her heart and onto her open palms, light as bright as her aura, she held it up, a whirling star in the young Eä, display her light in all her eminence before Ilúvatar.

And then a brush of hand about her waist, and a dark lips against hers as a ribbon of darkness overcast over her ball of light, and her partner and other half, Thuringwethil, was born kissing her. And Ilmarë kissed her back before perceiving her. 

“My wife, my love,” she spoke, “let us fill the empty skies with stars.” 

*

Light and shadow shaped existence itself. Their dance, intimate and complimentary, forged and made all that was in Eä: the shining tops of mountains and the dips in valleys, and light over treetops and the shadowy underbrush, a twinkle of light kindled and caressed among the darkness around her. These were their shared legacy, a uniqueness among the Ainur, for their love carried into the works of the others. Light and shadow gave to the depth of forests and seas, to the wings of birds which Manwë loved, and in turn the lovers too had wings, giant and cosmic like the twinkling rays of energy that Varda cast into the young universe. 

Whereever Ilmarë went, Thuringwethil followed. 

*

Thuringwethil harbored a disdain for Morgoth, leering at his hubris in thinking himself better than Ilúvatar, for all in life was a balance, as light and shadow, breath and exhale, birth and death. But it was Sauron his servant who had seduced her. 

It was not by words meant to blacken her heart, for her entire being was shadow. He did not give her something to hate when there was nothing she hated in Ilmarë her dearly beloved. 

It was a question, a curiosity planted in her mind that had taken root. 

“Can a shadow exist without light?” he had mused aloud before her before parting ways. The question perhaps had not meant to sway her towards him, but it left her shaken, and as Ilmarë’s glimmering arms later wrapped about her and she spread kisses like sparks of flames up her neck, the question lingered, growing darker and thicker in her mind: can a shadow live without light? 

Where Ilmarë was, Thuringwethil followed. But now it was reluctantly, and with questions. For why had her existence come chained to her? And could Thuringwethil not take another for a lover if she wished? Her entire existence came with a purpose, and it was to be the tail chasing after Ilmarë, overshadowed by her light, being the shadow many ignore as they beheld the beauty of Ilmarë’s light. 

The kisses from Ilmarë began to taste cold and far as Thuringwethil’s heart turned downward to the lands they had formed by their passion. 

*

“You’re dying!” Ilmarë’s face shone with tears like glittering starlight as she ran till she could just grab hold of Thuringwethil’s arm. The tips of the great wings had shrunk over time before the feathers drooped like smoke cascading from the heavens until a smoke arose, and then fire. 

“I will pray you back to good health,” she offered, other hand outstretched. “Please take my hand. Please.” 

But Thuringwethil sneered, the grin unseemly on her, and laughed coldly. “So what if my feathers are burning? I never asked for flight,” she said. “Just as I never asked to be yours or anyone’s. Leave me be, for I was never yours but forced into your arms! Let me seek my freedom!” 

The strike came as a blinding flash of ice, paralyzing her arm, and in those few moments, Thuringwethil her beloved shadow was gone, and in her place, an emptiness. 

*

Where Ilmarë went, no one followed. And her light, it seemed, was all the more dim, less refined, for it. 

The absence of her caresses, dark yet warm, left behind a bitter chill like the lingering smoke after light gone out seeking, searching, for its lost love. 

*

“You call that wings, love?” The bitterness she could not hide, mingled with the affection and the agony of not having spoken with her for a time. Without the wings that carried her in the cosmos, Thuringwethil fashioned herself something new from this world, taken in the shape of creatures for who shadows they revered. There was not a single feather on her, and overall the sight ugly. But she supposed so were the bats which took her as their goddess. 

“Why do you come?” Thuringwethil snarled. 

“A half-Maia managed to take your form,” Ilmarë said. “You’ve gone weak. How does one defeat shadow and cloak themselves in it?” 

“Mighty easily.” 

“But while using your own batfell?” 

Growling, Thuringwethil cast out Ilmarë from her realm. 

*

It had done little to ease the pain in her heart, for Thuringwethil regarded her with not a drop of that former lover’s gaze, but it was answer enough: they were now sworn enemies. Were once light and shadow were, as Ilúvatar wished, a thing of nature and necessity, opposites needed to make the world, so Morgoth had them redesigned to become two opposing factors in a never-ending battle.

She went to the farthest reaches of Eä and created new stars. The first which she kindled were in memory of times long gone, the story of herself and Thuringwethil, and she wept as tiny stars blinked without shadow to teach them, their light staggering oddly in the Void without their natural partner. The next batch were stars which told the tale of their separation, violent bright red stars to show her anger and pain. And then the third batch, far dimmer than the rest, of lonely stars in mourning, missing her partner who did not miss her in return. 

As she studied them each, twinkling in their colors and hues, stories held within each, she kindled the final one. A singular star, shining brightest of all. Its light was great, pure, the colors neither that of mourning nor anger nor fear, and yet the energy was intense and blinding. 

It shined brightest among the others, a warrior. 

If they were to be enemies, Ilmarë thought, then so they will. 

*

She found her trying to hide. After having lay witness to Ilmarë’s power against Morgoth’s foes, Thuringwethil had tried to flee from the battlefield, but Ilmarë was swift on her feet. 

“I loved you,” Thuringwethil said, breathing heavily. “I loved you so much I had not loved myself. Will you not spare me so I may? We are both different. I must be chained to you!” 

But her pleas fell on deaf ears. Forced into a duel and defeated, Thuringwethil fell at Ilmarë’s feet and moved no more. 

But she had not died. Ilmarë would not allow that to happen. She checked her pulse to make certain and looked about her. 

As the war ended and the sick tended to and the dead grieved over, Ilmarë turned to the skies. Thuringwethil still lay motionless, but Ilmarë smiled. 

“Come stay with me, as we were meant to be,” she said, her voice hitched slightly in madness. And she took to the stars with Thuringwethil in her arms. 

And like so it was that comets came to be, for never before had light chased shadow.

**Author's Note:**

> “So what if my feathers are burning? I never asked for flight” is from Ocean Vuong's “Devotion” in _Night Sky with Exit Wounds_.


End file.
